"I think I'm waiting for a corpse"

Families of the crew members of the missing Argentine submarine began to be accused of the incident of the military

In the Atlantic Ocean, the Argentinean submarine "San Huang" with 44 crew members on board has been looking for a week for a week. She stopped in touch on November 15. So far, it was not possible to understand where she is, nothing happened to her. On November 22, the search operation entered the “critical phase”: the Navy said that the missing submariners had oxygen for two days. Their relatives are waiting for the results of searches at the naval base in the mar-del pay, where the submarine was supposed to come according to the plan. They are increasingly angry with the military and believe that the search operation began too late.

“From time to time, I go to the shore of the ocean and ask him to return my son,” said Maria Morales, mother of the San Juan officer Luis Garcia. Together with other relatives of the missing submariners, she is located at the Mar-del Plata naval base-about a hundred people arrived there in total. They are trying to support each other. “We are going together, we say, try to cheer up those who are very sad or too worried,” Morales said .

Together with her son, the first female submariner in Argentina, 35-year-old Eliana Kravchik, served in Argentina. Her brother Roberto Kravchik said that his sister called him from the Ushuai port in the south of Argentina - there the submarine stopped for the repair for three days. Since then, he has not received any news from his sister - when the submarine leaves the port, the connection is stopped.

In the family, Eliana Kravchik was called the "queen of the seas." She decided to serve in the Navy in 2004, seeing an announcement of a recruitment in the Navy on the Internet. In 2012, Kravchik graduated from submariners to the school and became the first woman officer in the country on the submarine. She admitted that one day she dreams of heading the crew. “Maybe her grandparents, who sailed to Argentina from Europe on the ship, played the role of the genes of her grandparents. She has inexplicable passion [to submarines], ” said Kravchik one of his relatives.

The 25-year-old San Juan officer Luis Nis was going to marry a few weeks after arrival in Mar del Plata, his sister Sofia Alvarez said . She is one of the few relatives who openly talk about how hard they are now. “We are all here, 44 families - and a very long expectation. We will not calm down until we hug them again, ”said Alvarez.

The longer the search for missing submariners drag out, the more relatives have questions to the military who lead them. Elena Alfaro, the sister of the radar officer Christian Ibanyes, complained to the Argentinean television channel TN that the search operation began two days after the loss of the submarine. “I think I'm waiting for a corpse. Time is critical. Why so many rules, bureaucracy? Will the rules help return them? " - said Alfaro.

After 48 hours, the protocol of the naval forces of Argentina prescribes the search for the missing submarine after 48 hours. On him, the head of the Navy Admiral Marcelo Surr referred to him when communicating not only with the relatives of the missing, but also with his boss, Minister of Defense Oscar Aguad. The minister demanded to explain why he was not reported to the loss of communication with the submarine - like the whole country, he learned about what happened from the media on November 17.

Relatives criticized not only the military, but also the president of Argentina, Maurisio Makri, who visited the Mar-del Plata base on November 20. The video recording of his meeting with the relatives of the missing fell on the Internet and quickly parted on the Spanish -speaking blogs. Macri asked why the fleet is still operating the submarine, which was built in 1983. “To send them to the sea is so old at sea-this is practically suicide,” one of the relatives turned to the brand. - Are you cannot allocate money for the purchase of a new submarine? "

The day after the president, psychiatrist Enrique Stein arrived in the mar-del pay-for psychological work with relatives. Stein told the Argentine edition of Bigbang how this happens: he alternately leads them to a separate room, tries to reassure and convince that the authorities are doing everything in their power. “Sometimes it turns out, sometimes not. Some relatives are in critical condition, ”said Stein.

The military several times reported that they were close to finding a submarine, but each time preliminary information was not confirmed. On November 19, reports of seven satellite signals appeared , which allegedly went with San Juan, but later the military refuted this. On November 20, the search team heard the sound that took for a knock on the submarine corps - but it turned out that he had another source. On November 21, a rescue boat was found in the ocean-however, the Navy reported that San Juan was equipped with another model of boats.

On November 22, the representative of the Argentina Navy Enrique Balby said that the rescue operation entered the “critical phase”: if the submarine did not rise to the surface after the loss of communication, the crew remained for two days. The search returned to the district, where the submarine disappeared on November 15, since on the same day a certain “hydroacoustic anomaly” was recorded there. She could follow the explosion, suggested in the Navy. The anomaly was recorded three hours after the last contact with the submarine.

Olga Korelina